3838 — Cutting Off of Israel
The passage is a prophecy of Israel's backsliding and defection, and the cutting off of the people as a nation. See the fulfilment of this in Matt. 13:14; Mark 4:12; Luke 8:10; Rom. 11:8; that is, the people hardened their own heart by turning away their ears from the truth until the Lord withdrew His Spirit from them, and they went on to their own destruction, choosing another king than Jesus, and rejecting God's message of salvation. That, of course, began to take place before our Lord's time; it was true when Israel was carried down to Babylon. His people were removed far away, as the prophecy indicates, and only a very small portion left in the land; and even they journeyed to Egypt until the land lay desolate for seventy years. A few returned, and yet very few of all God's children, but they were the remnant. And so it was when we come to the time of our Lord; the large majority of the Jewish nation forsook Christ, and yet the remnant remained faithful. See Rom. 11:5. "Even so then at this present time also there is a remnant according to the election of grace." See the reference to Isaiah 6 in verse 8, also verse 25: "That blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in." That is, as a nation they were cast off. Christ the fulness came in and opened the great door of salvation to Jew and Gentile alike, all who accepted Christ the fulness becoming a part of Israel, grafted into the true Vine.